GIFT   OF 
EVGENE  MEYER,JR. 


THE    JUST    MAGISTRATE,    THE    REPRESENTATIVE    STATESMAN,    THE    PRACTICAL 
PHILANTHROPIST. 

• 

EULOGY 


BY 


A.LEX.     PL     BULLOCK 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN: 

THE    JUST   MAGISTRATE,  THE    REPRESENTATIVE    STATESMAN, 
THE    PRACTICAL    PHILANTHROPIST. 

ADDRESS 

BY 

^.LEX.     H.     BULLOCK, 

Before  the  City  Council  and  Citizens  of  Worcester, 
JUNE    1,    1865. 


WORCESTER: 

PRINTED     BY     CHARLES     HAMILTON, 


PALLADIUM    OFFICE. 


ffilg    of 

IN  CITY  COUNCIL,  JUNE  IST,  1865. 

RESOLVED,  That  the  unanimous  thanks  of  the  City  Council  are 
hereby  tendered  to  the  Hon.  ALEXANDER  H.  BULLOCK  for  his 
able  and  eloquent  Eulogy  upon  the  Life  and  Services  of  the  late 
PRESIDENT  LINCOLN,  delivered,  at  the  request  of  the  Council,  in 
Mechanics  Hall  this  day,  and  that  he  be  requested  to  furnish  a 
copy  for  publication. 

A  copy.     Attest, 

SAMUEL  SMITH,  City  Clerk. 


EULOGY 


TT  would  be  a  painful  suppression  of  one  of  the 
-**-  finest  of  human  instincts  and  an  unbecoming  dis 
regard  of  the  official  proclamation  of  the  chief  magis 
trate,  if  this  city  were  not  among  the  foremost  to 
accord  its  voice  to  the  funeral  cry  of  the  nation. 
Never  before,  in  high  joy  or  deep  grief,  has  the  nor 
mal  simplicity  of  America  given  way  to  such  pageant 
grandeur.  The  great  fountains  of  public  sorrow  have 
been  broken  up,  and  a  whole  people  have  turned  out 
to  herald  their  President  returning  in  silence  to  the 
dust  of  the  prairie.  I  look  back  over  forty  cen 
turies  for  the  like  of  this.  My  eye  discerns  no  fit 
resemblance  in  anything  which  the  conceits  of  heathen 
mythology  have  transmitted, — not  in  that  mythical 
sympathy  of  the  Tiber  for  Marcellus,  fortunate 
recipient  of  such  honor, — nor  in  the  many  memorial 
Italian  marbles  and  temples — nor  in  all  the  tasteful 


pomp  which  has  conducted  French  kings  to  their 
imperial  sleep,  and  has  made  their  capital  a  vast 
lettered  monument  to  its  one  great  departed, — nor  in 
the  drum-beat,  and  cathedral  service,  and  royal  guard, 
which  have  escorted  English  monarchs  from  the 
palace  to  the  Abbey.  The  earliest  and  latest  age 
alone  meet  now  in  comparison  of  mournful  pageantry. 
The  Orient  and  the  West,  the  third  of  Hebrew 
patriarchs  and  the  sixteenth  President,  four  thousand 
years  apart,  are  pictured  before  us  to-day  in  the  same 
spectacle  and  lesson  of  a  nation  following  a  just  and 
true  ruler  to  his  tomb. 

I  do  not  suppose  that  in  all  the  intervening  period, 
fretted  and  gilded  as  it  has  been  with  art  and  culture, 
anything  like  the  passage  of  the  herald-corpse  of 
Jacob  from  his  death-bed  to  the  field  and  cave  of  his 
fathers,  in  public  turn-out,  and  general  lamentation, 
and  sincerity  of  grief,  has  occurred  before  until  now. 
To  the  two  thousand  dependants  of  that  deceased,  to 
all  those  sent  forth  by  his  premier-son,  the  most 
munificent  of  the  line  of  Egyptian  kings  ordered  all 
the  public  men  of  his  country  to  report  for  additional 
escort  on  the  long  and  patient  and  solemn  march. 
Chariots  and  horsemen,  men  and  maidens,  the  grim 
visages  of  age  and  the  dusky  beauty  of  youth,  in 
lengthened  procession,  with  palms,  and  music,  and 
benediction,  in  behalf  of  that  early  world  paid  the 
last  tribute  to  a  great  and  just  benefactor,  to  a  builder 


of  empire.  Measuring  the  days  by  their  solemn  tramp 
and  their  halts  for  local  condolence,  the  swarthy  col 
umn  moved  on  over  two  hundred  miles,  and  laid  their 
treasured  hero  in  the  august  depository  of  the  first 
and  second  of  his  line. 

That  oriental  retinue  of  bereavement  and  sublimity 
has  been  matched  and  eclipsed  within  this  last  lunar 
month.  Dying  without  the  consciousness  but  amid 
all  the  pathos  of  his  Eastern  exemplar  and  progenitor, 
the  foremost  man  of  this  western  world  has  been 
carried  to  his  rural  rest  beyond  the  mountains  and 
near  the  great  river.  Awhile  he  lay  in  state  at  the 
capital  where  he  fell,  that  all  classes  might  gather 
about,  to  learn  the  lessons  of  historical  providence 
and  witness  the  presence  of  God.  His  dust,  garnered 
beneath  richest  canopies,  preceded  by  raven  waving 
plumes,  and  flanked  by  reverse  arms  of  the  flower 
youth  of  the  land,  has  been  borne  on  triumphal  route 
through  the  chief  cities  of  a  continent.  The  Monu 
mental  City  opened  her  gates  in  love,  which  four 
years  before  would  have  closed  them  against  him,  if 
she  had  known  his  coming.  Independence  Hall 
struck  its  bell,  and  the  dismal  undulations  spread 
through  half-a-million  of  hearts  as  he  passed  by. 
The  great  Emporium  of  the  North,  which  had  made 
a  jest  of  much  of  his  life  in  office,  bowed  as  a  unit, 
like  a  stricken  child,  and  paid  such  honors  to  his 
passing  shade  as  no  where  have  been  witnessed  on 


6 


the  earth.  Still  onward  and  westward,  a  thousand 
miles  yet  to  go,  surrounded  by  vast  throngs,  all  and 
everywhere  reverential,  all  and  everywhere  casting 
choicest  flowers  upon  the  pathway  of  the  dead, — as  if 
twenty  millions  had  assembled  to  make  ovation  before 
the  corporeal  symbol  of  a  benefactor — your  President 
was  taken  to  his  last  abode,  where  he  shall  rest  till 
the  dead  shall  rise  at  the  call  of  the  archangel. 

The  first  shock  of  our  calamity,  the  deep  sensation 
of  horror  which  pervaded  all  our  hearts  when  the 
"  couriers  of  the  air "  told  us  at  midnight  how 
suddenly  and  in  what  manner  President  Lincoln  had 
a  few  hours  before  been  snatched  away,  has  now 
subsided,  and  we  naturally  pause  and  deliberate  upon 
those  qualities  of  character  and  service,  which,  in  the 
apparent  judgment  of  this  country,  have  already 
assigned  him  a  place  only  second  in  the  long  lineage 
of  its  magistrates.  However  simple  this  analysis  may 
seem,  it  falls  entirely  outside  the  common  range  of 
our  study  of  public  men  and  events,  and  does  not 
belong  to  the  usual  analogies  of  biography  or  history. 
It  would  be  scarcely  more  irrational  to  compare  the 
developments  and  stages  through  which  we  have  just 
passed  with  any  or  all  the  unlike  periods  before,  than 
to  measure  him  who  has  been  the  central  figure  in 
these  civic  and  martial  achievements  by  the  personal 
ities  of  the  past.  He  will  be  known  and  judged  by 
the  next  age,  not  indeed  without  regard  to  his  abstract 


quality,  but  more  conspicuously  and  vividly  as  the  one 
man,  who,  in  the  unfolding  of  the  panorama  of  these 
four  years,  everywhere  appears  in  front  and  in  chief. 
Under  the  limitations  of  a  single  Presidential  term  he 
must  pass  to  his  place  among  critics  and  annalists ; 
but  that  Presidential  term  was  enough  to  have  en 
circled  an  historic  generation  in  other  ages,  and  to 
have  circumscribed  the  life-long  renown  of  other 
statesmen.  Safely  then  may  we  trust  him  to  that 
judgment  which  shall  fall  upon  his  own  brief 
career  of  rule.  Never  any  man,  without  public 
thought  or  remembrance  of  his  youth,  or  early  life, 
or  disciplinary  training,  has  mounted  so  quickly  to 
the  empyrean  of  fame.  Think,  for  example,  in  what 
manner  we  usually  estimate  Napoleon  or  Washington. 
Their  distinction  dates  from  the  beginning.  The 
genius  of  Napoleon  is  nearly  the  same  to  us  whether 
we  remember  him  as  a  child  playing  with  a  cannon, 
or  as  a  youth  in  the  Academy,  or  at  twenty-eight 
dazzling  the  nations  with  his  unprecedented  victories. 
Washington  the  youth  is  familiar  to  our  school  boys, 
appears  great  in  the  French  war,  only  greater  in  the 
Revolutionary  and  Constitutional  period  which 
followed.  But  here  is  a  plain  man,  since  April 
opened,  gone  into  the  alcoves  of  all  generations  to 
come  and  of  every  race,  as  to  all  of  his  life  save  the 
last  five  years  unknown  to  half  his  countrymen  and 
to  the  whole  world  beside.  Such  and  so  exceptional 


is  our  country  and  our  time,  such  and  so  exceptional 
is  Abraham  Lincoln. 

And  yet  he  had  a  childhood  and  a  youth.  In  that 
which  I  call  the  first  stage  of  his  life,  ending  when 
he  settled  down  as  a  lawyer  in  Springfield,  I  think  we 
may  see  that  fitting,  that  preparation,  that  nascent 
destination,  which  was  the  providential  prelude  to  the 
ultimate  work.  Cast  into  a  sparsely  inhabited  wild 
at  eight  years,  fulfilling  the  measure  of  maternal 
ambition  when  at  ten  he  could  read  the  sacred  volume, 
exercising  his  first  conscious  power  in  writing  to  his 
mother's  traveling  preacher  to  come  and  preach  over 
her  grave,  writing  letters  for  the  neighbors,  attending 
the  first  school  in  that  country  clad  in  buckskin,  only 
too  happy  at  length  when  he  could  count  as  his  prop 
erty  a  copy  of  Bunyan  and  ^Esop,  a  life  of  Washing 
ton  and  Clay,  behold  him  whose  death  forty-five  years 
later  brought  autograph  letters  from  every  crowned 
head  of  Europe.  His  library  might  have  been  larger, 
but  could  it  have  been  better  I  To  his  apprehension 
of  the  Divine  Word,  learned  when  that  was  the  only 
volume  in  the  cabin,  we  may  owe  the  Cromwell-like 
second  Inaugural,  which  was  only  half  appreciated 
by  his  countrymen  until  the  praise  of  it  came  from 
the  other  side  of  the  water.  Did  a  man  ever  reflect 
better  the  light  of  youthful  studies,  than  the  President 
reflected  ^Esop  and  Bunyan  ]  No  books  are  more 
likely  to  be  remembered  than  they ;  Cowper  said  that 


his  child-readings  of  the  Pilgrim's  Progress  would 
abide  with  him  till  memory  should  perish.  And  I 
confess  it  is  to  me  a  grateful  fancy,  in  looking  back 
for  the  formative  influences  in  the  life  of  Lincoln,  to 
perceive  in  these  two  masterpieces  of  inventive  and 
natural  conception  such  sources  of  thought  and 
impression  as  would  be  best  calculated  to  produce 
that  combination,  which  he  so  remarkably  illustrated, 
and  which  was  not  unrequisite  for  our  time,  the 
Puritan  and  the  Hoosier.  Then  we  are  to  remember 
that  in  this  school  of  Western  life,  with  books  so  few 
but  so  good,  he  acquired  what  Mr.  Burke  would  call 
"  the  rustic,  manly,  home-bred  sense  of  this  country," 
— to  have  polished  whose  ingenuous  roughness  would 
have  cost  us  half  the  power  he  has  had  during  this 
war  over  the  mass  of  his  citizens.  They  have  liked 
him  all  the  better,  that  his  wisdom  and  speech  were 
elementary  and  enabled  him  to  speak  directly  to  their 
hearts.  They  have  liked  him  so  much  the  more,  that 
he  did  not  pretend  to  be  learned,  while  they  knew 
him  to  be  original  and  wise.  Paucity  of  opportunities 
in  youth  favored  modesty  in  high  position.  How 
many  members  of  Parliament,  asked  an  English  jour 
nal,  would  imitate  the  modest  honesty  of  the  President 
and  acknowledge  that  they  had  never  read  all  parts  of 
Shakespeare  \  But  he  understood  and  remembered 
all  that  he  had  read. 

And  now,  before   he   opens    his  office  of  law,  we 


10 

catch  a  glimpse  of  the  young  man  of  nineteen  floating 
as  super-cargo  on  a  flat-boat  to  New  Orleans.  It  was 
his  last  act  of  rusticity  and  adventure.  He  was  now 
unconsciously  completing  that  democratic  type  of 
character  which  in  its  subsequent  expansion  and  use 
has  contributed  so  largely  to  save  the  union  of  these 
States.  It  was  indeed  a  typical  enterprise,  for  that 
voyage  represented  the  unity  of  interest  and  welfare 
which  connects  the  North-west  with  the  Gulf,  and 
all  the  States  together  from  the  Crescent  round  to 
Malabar.  .  Upon  his  return  he  would  enter  the  gates 
of  productive  life,  how  eventful  he  then  knew  not, 
nor  any  one  of  you.  Suppose  that  in  one  of  those 
transition  hours,  as  he  was  borne  lazily  on  the  great 
currents  and  by  the  solemn  forests,  his  unlettered  mind 
rapt  in  the  rhapsodies  of  the  Prophets,  or  the  dreams 
of  Bunyan,  or  the  wit  of  ^Esop,  or  the  grandeur  of 
Washington,  the  angel  of  this  dedicated  youth  had 
raised  the  curtain  and  revealed  to  him,  that  before  he 
should  pass  the  ordinary  prime  of  life  he  should  be 
elevated  to  the  highest  trust  of  this  empire,  lifted  on 
the  shoulders  of  the  people  in  ecstacy  at  the  thought 
his  own  words  had  kindled  of  making  it  all  free, — 
that  under  his  presiding  the  issues  of  life  and  death 
to  this  Union  should  be  unrolled  on  every  field  of  a 
continental  war, — that  he  himself  should  sit  in  control 
over  larger  armies  than  Europe  north  or  south  had 
ever  seen. — that  his  hand  should  touch  the  electric 


11 

wire  which  should  awake  four  millions  of  the  children 
of  men  to  liberty  and  immortality, — that  the  govern 
ment  of  his  country  should  at  last  be  sealed  in  his 
own  blood  to  eternal  security  and  glory,  and  that  he, 
almost  yet  young,  should  return  to  sleep  with  his 
fathers,  leaving  to  both  hemispheres  a  name  that 
shall  be  hailed  with  that  of  Washington  whose  history 
he  was  even  then  reading,  till  time  shall  be  no  more  ! 
He  would  have  fallen  prostrate  before  the  vision  ! 
And  yet  under  the  beneficence  of  our  institutions  if 
this  was  to  happen  at  all  it  was  as  likely  to  happen 
to  him  as  to  any  other,  and  he  lived  to  behold  it,  and 
died  in  an  untimely  hour  at  fifty-seven  ! 

Upon  the  second  period,  that  which  I  call  the 
brawn  in  his  life,  these  exercises  will  not  permit  me 
long  to  dwell.  It  bears  the  journals  of  twenty  years, 
from  the  raising  of  the  attorney's  sign  in  '37  till  he 
gave  himself  without  reclamation  to  his  country  at  the 
opening  of  '58.  They  tell  us  he  was  an  able  lawyer, 
and  I  can  believe  that ;  but  he  must  have  been 
elementary,  not  learned.  They  give  us  good  accounts 
of  his  professional  successes  ;  but  other  and  greater 
scenes  make  us  forget  them.  The  jurisprudence  of 
the  West  in  his  day  has  entitled  few  men  to  enduring 
distinction.  We  know,  however,  that  he  distinguished 
himself  in  his  own  cases,  and  that  he  was  a  favorite 
sought  to  manage  the  causes  of  the  clients  of  others. 
In  the  Legislature  of  his  State  he  measured  lances 


12 


with  the  rising  Douglas  and  there  for  the  first  time 
caught  the  gleam  of  his  own  future.  Once  he  went 
into  Congress,  and  left  it  without  great  distinction, — 
but  that  should  not  be  counted  largely  against  him. 
Yet  it  was  then  that  he  became  considerably  known 
in  the  country.  At  that  time  I  met  him  in  the 
streets  of  Worcester.  Congress  had  just  adjourned 
when  our  Whig  State  Convention  assembled  here  in 
1848.  As  the  chosen  head  of  the  city  committee  of 
the  party  with  which  he  acted,  I  had  called  a  public 
meeting  in  yonder  hall  for  the  evening  preceding  the 
convention  and  had  invited  several  gentlemen  of  note 
to  make  addresses.  None  of  them  came.  But  as  the 
sun  was  descending  I  was  told  that  Abraham  Lincoln, 
member  of  Congress  from  Illinois,  was  stopping  at 
one  of  the  hotels  in  town.  I  had  heard  of  him  before 
and  at  once  called  upon  him  and  made  known  my 
wish  that  he  would  address  the  meeting  in  the  even 
ing,  to  which  he  readily  assented.  I  further  suggested 
to  him  that  as  the  party  in  whose  cause  we  were  then 
united  was  largely  in  a  minority  here,  and  as  there 
was  an  unusual  bitterness  in  the  antagonistic  politics 
of  this  community,  he  should  practice  much  discre 
tion  and  leave  our  side  as  well  in  its  prospects  as  he 
could.  Jlis  benignant  eye  caught  my  meaning  and 
his  gentle  spirit  responded  approval.  His  address  was 
one  of  the  best  it  has  ever  been  my  fortune  to  hear, 
and  left  not  one  root  of  bitterness  behind.  Some  of 


13 


you  will  remember  all  this,  but  not  so  distinctly  as  I 
do.  I  never  saw  him  afterwards.  The  next  day  the 
convention  came  ;  the  genius-eloquence  of  Choate,  of 
blessed  memory,  was  applauded  to  the  echo,  and  the 
stately  rhetoric  of  Winthrop  received  its  reward  ;  but 
the  member  from  Illinois,  though  he  remained  in  town 
surrounded  by  associate  congressmen,  was  that  day 
and  in  that  body  unknown  and  unheard.  But  where 
are  they  all  nowr, — and  where  is  he, — in  the  benedic 
tions  of  his  countrymen,  in  the  gratitude  of  an 
enfranchised  race,  in  the  love  of  mankind  ! 

In  1858,  only  seven  years  ago,  Mr.  Lincoln  was 
selected  by  the  Republicans  of  Illinois  as  the  com 
petitor  of  Mr.  Douglas  for  a  seat  in  the  Senate  of  the 
United  States.  Thus  opened  the  third  and  last  period 
of  his  life.  How  strong  he  was  at  that  time  in  the 
empire-state  of  the  West,  is  well  shown  by  his  having 
received  every  vote  in  a  ballot  of  twelve  hundred 
chosen  delegates  in  a  state  convention.  That  was  the 
hour  of  his  consecration,  of  his  sacramental  vow,  in 
the  service  of  the  country.  Then  and  there  he 
became  the  representative  man.  And  now,  after 
reading  for  the  second  time  his  discussions  with 
his  eminent  rival  in  that  canvass,  I  can  declare  my 
conviction  that  to  the  clear  analysis  which  he  con 
stantly  presented  of  the  purposes  and  the  teachings 
of  the  founders  of  this  government,  to  the  reverence 
with  which  he  impressed  the  people  for  the  humane 


14 


and  benevolent  intent  of  the  Constitution,  to  the 
exalted  moral  reasons  upon  which  he  predicated  the 
new  coming  era,  we  are  more  largely  indebted,  than 
to  any  other  person,  for  the  firm  purpose  and  high 
resolve  which,  two  years  later,  united  and  inflamed 
the  free  states  against  the  further  encroachments  of 
slavery  in  this  country.  You  will  consider  the 
honorable  courage  of  the  man  in  the  positions  he 
then  took.  The  laws,  the  traditions,  the  systems  of 
Illinois,  her  southern  geography  and  settlement,  the 
memories  and  prejudices  of  her  people,  were  all 
against  the  theories  and  humanities  which  he  deter 
mined  in  the  fear  only  of  God  to  proclaim.  But  his 
soul  was  ablaze  with  the  enthusiasm  of  a  Christian 
statesmanship,  and  he  went  forth  in  the  panoply  of 
immortal  truth,  which  neither  the  timidity  of  friends 
could  strip  from  him,  nor  the  darts  of  opponents  could 
penetrate.  He  sounded  at  the  opening  the  bugle 
note  of  omen  which  rang  through  the  land :  "  A 
house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand.  I  believe 
this  government  cannot  permanently  endure  half 
slave  and  half  free.  I  do  not  expect  the  Union  to  be 
dissolved.  I  do  not  expect  the  house  to  fall,  but  I  do 
expect  it  will  cease  to  be  divided.  It  will  become  all 
one  thing  or  all  the  other."  Many  elsewhere,  some 
there,  hesitated  over  the  high  doctrine  ;  large  num 
bers  of  Republicans  in  the  Xorth  were  not  unwilling 
to  sec  Mr.  Douglas  successful  as  a  reward  for  his 


15 

brave  contest  with  Buchanan.  I  confess  that  I  felt  so 
myself.  But  the  newly  invested  champion  looked 
over  the  fleeting  hour  and  the  mere  question  of  a 
senatorial  chair,  he  saw  farther  than  times  or  localities, 
and  pierced  beyond  the  veil  which  too  often  shuts  off 
administrations  from  the  vision  of  the  beatitudes  and 
the  ages  ;  he  knew  the  importance  that  the  banner  of 
anew  party,  which  bore  the  name  of  Freedom,  should 
carry  radiant  inscriptions,  and  over  all  the  state,  from 
her  frozen  springs  to  her  Egyptian  heats,  he  upheld 

"  TV  imperial  ensign,  which,  full  high  advanced, 
Shone  like  a  meteor  streaming  to  the  wind." 

By  this  unwavering  fidelity  to  his  convictions,  his 
hour  having  not  yet  come,  under  the  over-ruling  of 
Providence  he  accomplished  both  more  and  less  than 
he  set  out  for  ;  he  made  his  rival  Senator,  himself 
President,  and  his  country  Free.  As  I  look  backward 
over  the  events  of  that  year  which  he  so  largely 
controlled  ;  as  I  follow  him  sixty  times  to  the  hustings, 
and  hear  him  in  language  not  one  word  of  which,  so 
far  as  I  can  judge,  he  would  wish  to  blot,  urging  those 
lessons  which  the  nation  must  then  have  received  or 
have  passed  beneath  the  yoke  of  perpetual  humilia 
tion, — as  I  see  him  rising  from  the  autumn  of  '58  to 
the  spring  of  '60  to  an  ascendency  over  all  others  as  the 
advocate  of  the  primal  principles  of  a  free  republic, 
and  so  recognized  across  the  whole  northern  belt  from 

O 

the  great  plains  to  the    Atlantic  frontier, — I  not  only 


16 

count  him  most  fortunate  of  men  in  the  height  to 
which  all  these  things  soon  after  conducted  him  and 
us,  but  I  conclude  that  if  he  had  gone  then  to  the 
sleep  in  which  he  now  reposes,  he  would  have  been 
embalmed  statesman-father  of  a  new  dispensation. 
The  year  eighteen  hundred  fifty-eight  had  established 

him. 

"  The  boundless  prairies  learned  his  name, 
His  words  the  mountain  echoes  knew, 
The  Northern  breezes  swept  his  fame 
From  icy  lake  to  warm  bayou." 

Our  greatest  Olympiad  opened  in  eighteen  hundred 
sixty.  I  need  not  sketch  the  preceding  or  attendant 
circumstances  of  the  convention  and  the  nomination. 
Our  first  choice  was  another,  and  Massachusetts 
followed  the  fine  arts  of  New  York  to  give  it  success. 
They  have  a  better  and  larger  way  at  the  West. 
While  the  men  of  the  East  were  ciphering  at  the 
hotels  in  Chicago,  the  men  of  the  Mississippi,  the 
Ohio,  and  the  Wabash  were  packing  the  wigwam  and 
filling  the  square  with  a  myriad  of  large  hearts  and 
brazen  throats  ready  to  sound  another  and  a  loftier 
chant.  Their  candidate  took  the  votes,  and  the 
voice  of  all  rose  to  the  sky  like  a  chorus  of  nature. 
It  was  the  echo  of  the  voice  of  God. 

Fortunate,  providential  selection !  Any  other 
apparently  would  have  shipwrecked  the  Ark  of  the 
Covenant.  If  you  consider  how  inevitable  are  the 
jealousies  of  the  West  towards  the  East,  to  which  we 


17 

must  always  submit  and  which  we  must  always 
palliate  since  we  cannot  prevent  or  remove  them, — 
if,  especially,  you  reflect  what  a  bond  of  fate  that 
Father  of  Waters  is  to  us  all,  and  how  we  must  keep 
peace  and  conciliation  with  those  River  gods  if  we 
expect  unity,  prosperity,  and  glory, — if  you  freshly 
remember  how,  since  this  war  began,  the  people  of 
the  West,  though  their  sons  were  dying  in  the  same 
trenches  and  in  the  same  hospitals  with  ours,  have 
thought  and  said  that  we  were  reaping  the  greater 
benefits  of  the  sacrifice, — you  will  agree  with  me  that 
none  but  a  Western  President  could  have  kept  our 
armies,  our  voters,  and  our  hearts  united  amid  the 
afflictions  and  reverses  that  have  rolled  their  thunders 
and  their  floods  over  us.  And  so  the  hand  of  our 
Fathers'  God  interposed  against  our  calculations  five 
years  ago  at  the  city  of  the  Lakes. 

Our  departed  hero  accepted  the  nomination  in 
written  words  which  are  a  model  for  practical  religion 
and  modern  statesmanship.  In  language  which  shows 
that  the  spirit  of  the  Most  High  was  upon  him  he 
wrapped  the  resolutions  around  his  heart,  and  in  terms 
which  should  have  won  every  citizen  from  Key  West 
to  Richmond  he  gave  himself  to  the  issue  now  so 
triumphant  and  so  sad.  It  was  an  issue  worthy  of 
the  best  days  of  any  nation.  As  he  received  it  from 
the  convention  that  framed  it,  and  as  he  stated  it  in 
his  letter  of  acceptance,  it  was  a  system  of  policy  and 


18 

statesmanship  which  Daniel  Webster  even  on  that 
memorable  seventh  of  March  would  have  rejoiced  to 
acknowledge,  which  Henry  Clay  in  any  of  his  later  and 
brilliant  years  would  have  gladly  made  resound  as  out 
of  a  trumpet  from  the  borders  of  Virginia  through  the 
length  of  Kentucky  to  the  Ptiver.  It  was  a  broad  and 
generous  platform, — such  as  Jefferson  would  have 
decorated  with  an  hundred  theses  of  his  philosophy,— 
such  as  Washington  would  have  stood  upon  and  in 
voked  the  blessings  of  the  Almighty.  And  I  have 
the  honor  to  say  here, — to  be  sure  it  is  now  after  the 
fulfillment  of  the  declarations  and  the  prophesies,— 
that  if  Abraham  Lincoln  had  not  felt  warranted 
to  justify  and  stand  upon  the  Resolutions,  then  the 
North  American  republic  was  not  deserving  of  salva 
tion.  But  he  thought,  as  we  thought,  that  there  was 
a  divinity  in  the  impending  struggle,  and  we  entered 
upon  it  together,  all  of  us  rejoicing  to  have  such  a 
leader,  and  he  only  too  willing  to  stake  his  life  on  the 
support  of  such  friends  and  on  such  a  sublime 
restoration  and  reconstruction  of  nationality. 

He  was  chosen;  the  men  in  the  South  of  our 
country  had  decided  that  he  should  be  chosen,  and 
that  the  precipitation  of  their  designs  should  attend 
with  equal  promptness  the  humanity  and  patriotism 
of  the  North.  The  work  of  secession  began  at  the 
instant,  and  before  the  President  elect  had  reached 
the  Capital  so  many  of  the  slave  states  had  already 


19 

declared  themselves  out  of  the  Union  as  to  make  it 
certain  that  nearly  all  the  others  intended  to  follow. 
Though  Buchanan  had  remained  in  office  four  months 
since  the  election, — let  the  curtain  drop  over  all  that 
he  did  and  over  all  that  he  neglected  to  do,  and  let 
us  behold  the  new  President  approaching  the  frowning 
scene  which  confronted  him. 

Such  work  was  his  as  no  man  had  ever  put  hand  to. 
A  nation  was  dissolving,  and  half  its  territory  was 
bristling  with  the  arms  of  revolt.  In  the  loyal  sections 
there  was  universal  despondency,  and  among  those 
upon  whom  he  must  rely  there  was  every  variety  of 
counsel,  from  that  which  would  permit  the  wayward 
sisters  to  depart  in  peace,  to  that  which  would  thrust 
the  arm  of  the  government  in  the  moment  of  its 
greatest  weakness  against  the  thick  bosses  of  a 
rebellion  of  thirty  years  preparation.  The  Czar,  the' 
Emperor,  the  King,  would  marshal  and  march  out  his 
army  and  crush  insurgency  before  the  next  moon  ; 
but  the  constitutional  republic  had  no  army.  Foreign 
nations  caught  at  the  defect  in  a  moment  as  fatal  to 
our  existence,  and  adapted  their  own  policy  to  the 
expectation  of  seeing  the  North  American  Union 
disappear  like  a  dream.  In  the  general  gloom  which 
shut  down  over  the  whole  horizon  good  men  every 
where  were  ready  to  exclaim,  HAIL,  HOLY  LIGHT, — if 
only  it  might  come  from  any  quarter.  What  kind  of 
statesmanship,  or  learning,  or  experience,  could  make 


20 

a  magistrate  equal  to  such  a  work  ]  Diplomacy  could 
not  save  the  flag  then,  eloquence  could  not  start  a 
throb  beneath  the  ribs  of  that  death,  an  arm  of  flesh 
could  not  hold  a  charm  over  the  engulfing  waters  and 
the  dismantling  ship.  History,  civilization,  nay, 
almost  the  mercies  of  Heaven,  we  thought,  were 
baffled  in  that  day.  Again,  then,  I  ask,  what  kind  of 
a  President  was  needed,  and  would  prove  best 
appointed  1  You  know  how,  for  many  months,  before 
this  man  had  got  rightly  into  the  work,  and  before  we 
could  properly  measure  him,  some  of  you  sighed  for 
a  Jackson  and  others  for  a  Webster  to  take  the  helm  ; 
yet  we  now  all  believe  that  we  have  had  the  man 
raised  up  by  God  for  this  particular  epoch,  that  few 
could  have  accomplished  this  mission  at  all,  and  none 
so  well. 

For  he  came  to  it  devout,  wise,  patient,  forecasting, 
and  rich  with  insight.  I  read  his  Inaugural  as  a  key 
to  his  whole  policy  for  this  strange  time,  and  there  I 
discern  the  dawn  of  the  lustre  of  his  qualities  for 
administration,  which  blended  a  certain  lloman  firm 
ness  with  a  Christian  mediatorial  talent.  His  wisdom 
began  in  this,  that  he  knew  he  could  not  foresee  all 
that  might  happen,  and  so  he  would  gather  the  arms 
of  his  countrymen  around  him,  and  would  keep  step 
with  the  majestic  marches  of  Providence.  Never 
doubting  that  our  jurisdiction  would  be  recovered, 
always  believing  the  conflict  would  be  long  and 


21 

varied,  he  promised  just  enough  to  keep  the  element 
of  hope  uppermost  in  the  country,  and  not  too  much 
to  unfit  the  masses  for  their  own  great  part.  Clay  or 
Webster  in  his  chair  might  have  restored  the  old 
Union  a  little  sooner,  with  the  loss  of  the  moral  sense 
of  the  world  and  with  the  cost  of  another  revolt 
hereafter ;  Jackson  might  have  struck  quicker  and 
heavier  blows,  but  an  untimely  blow  then,  might  have 
shivered  this  Union  like  glass.  Our  man  had  that 
tact  and  knowledge  of  men  which  only  his  training 
could  have  imparted.  He  knew  his  own  West,  and 
kept  his  hand  constantly  on  her  pulse ;  he  was  in 
sympathy  with  the  conscience  of  the  East,  and  honored 
her  culture  and  power ;  and  by  his  cultivation  of  the 
one  and  the  other  he  kept  them  both  in  harmonious 
action  to  the  end.  The  ancient  countries  affected 
delight  and  amusement  at  the  sight  of  this  son  of  the 
prairies  succeeding  to  the  work  of  kings  and  putting 
his  hand  to  an  undertaking  which  comprised  the 
destinies  of  a  hemisphere.  They  could  not  under 
stand  that  the  question  he  had  to  deal  with  could 
receive  little  aid  from  state-craft  or  the  previous 
education  of  a  public  man.  They  could  not  believe 
that  new  men  are  best  for  great  crises  ;  that  for 
such  a  ruler  and  for  such  a  period  Bunyan  is  a  better 
master  than  all  the  Georges,  and  ^Esop  a  keener 
teacher  than  both  the  Walpoles  ;  that  in  a  trial  of 
the  national  spirit  and  the  national  forces  involving 


22 

the  issue  of  death  at  once  or  life  perpetual  to  a  nation, 
the  study  of  Washington  is  higher  than  the  schools  ; 
that  in  such  an  emergency  a  single  Cromwell  is 
greater  than  a  dozen  earls  out  of  Eton  and  Oxford. 
They  forgot  the  consolations  of  their  own  history  ; 
that  Marlborough  had  never  read  Xenophon,  or  later 
martial  historians,  but  somehow  managed  to  triumph 
over  veteran  armies  of  France  ;  that  Wellington  was 
counted  dull  in  his  early  life,  and  rose  to  victory  and 
fame  only  by  the  buffet  of  trial ;  and  they  did  not 
stop  to  consider  that  Lincoln  might  ascend  as  con 
spicuously,  and  bring  with  him  a  Grant,  a  Sherman, 
a  Sheridan,  as  quickly  and  as  triumphantly.  All 
history,  all  examples,  all  instructions  are  at  fault  in 
revolutions  ;  and  our  enemies  at  home  and  abroad 
were  making  mockery  of  the  mysteries  of  providential 
interpositions  all  along  the  century-processions  of 
mankind,  when  they  hesitated  about  our  success 
because  our  chief  had  no  title  save  that  which  the 
Almighty  had  given  him,  no  signet  save  that  of  the 
cabin,  no  learning  save  that  to  which  the  evening 
torch  and  the  celestial  orbs  had  lighted  him.  But  he 
disappointed  them  all,  passed  beyond  the  boundaries 
they  had  set  for  him,  within  four  years,  the  shortest 
space  ever  illustrated  by  such  distinction,  triumphed 
over  a  civil  war  of  imperial  proportions,  and  left  a 
name  to  be  recorded  and  repeated  in  the  courts  of 
St.  Louis,  St.  James,  and  St.  Peter,  among  the  inscrip- 


23 

tions  of  a  thousand  years  past  and  to  come.  So 
simple  and  rudimental  in  his  origin  and  preparation, 
not  learned  by  the  side  of  the  masters,  and  not 
ignorant  of  himself,  he  came  to  a  supremacy  over  the 
grandest  epic  of  all  countries  and  gave  triumphant 
direction  to  the  greatest  war  of  human  annals.  It 
will  be  the  task  of  the  historian  and  biographer  to 
classify  and  present  these  high  themes  hereafter,  but 
a  few  words  ought  to  be  said  about  them  now  over 
his  new-made  grave. 

Having  neither  the  taste  nor  the  education  of  a 
soldier,  he  so  practised  his  intuitions  as  to  become 
master  of  the  field  of  war.  If  you  consider  how 
extended  and  complicated  the  objective  field  soon 
became,  and  how  in  consultation  and  oversight  he  was 
its  director,  it  must  occur  to  you  in  reading  his 
correspondence  with  the  commanders,  that  his 
perceptions  were  clear  and  his  judgment  elementary 
and  profound.  How  many  toilsome  and  anxious 
hours  he  passed  in  the  war  department,  and  how  well 
he  understood  all  that  was  transpiring  and  all  that 
ought  to  transpire,  is  made  apparent  in  the  letters  he 
himself  wrote  to  Gen.  McClellan  during  the  fifteen 
months  of  his  command.  Head  them  and  re-read 
them  and  you  will  agree  that  they  evince,  in  a 
remarkable  degree  for  a  civilian,  the  military  sense. 
Having  committed  to  that  officer  an  army  of  eight 
scores  of  the  flower  of  the  land,  he  followed 


it  with  an  interest  alike  parental  and  patriotic, 
studying  the  map  of  its  marches  '  and  its  hopes, 
breasting  back  while  he  could  the  impatience  of  the 
country,  at  all  times  suggesting  his  advice  kindly  to  its 
chief,  and  finally,  in  those  dark  days  which  have  made 
the  name  of  the  Chickahominy  historical,  transmitting 
a  series  of  dispatches  from  his  own  pen  which  could 
not  have  been  better  if  he  had  possessed  the  genius 
of  a  soldier.  He  saw  through  the  objective  and  the 
consequential  of  campaigns  quite  as  clearly  and  quite 
as  far  as  most  of  the  generals  who  wore  his  stars. 
Under  the  pressure  of  military  repulses  he  rose  large 
as  the  occasion,  and  when  his  commanders  were 
changing  their  base  he  held  hopefully  to  his  own. 
When  retreat  and  disintegration  had  destroyed  the 
last  chance  of  entering  Kichmond  that  season,  and 
his  chieftain  called  many  times  again  for  reinforce 
ments,  he  telegraphed  back  a  volume  of  present 
history  and  future  destiny  in  a  few  short,  sharp,  kind, 
hopeful  words  :  "  If  we  had  a  million  of  men  we  could 
not  get  them  to  you  in  time.  We  have  not  the  men. 
If  you  are  not  strong  enough  to  face  the  enemy,  *  *  * 
save  the  army  at  all  events,  even  if  you  fall  back  to 
Fort  Monroe.  We  still  have  strength  enough  in  the 
country,  AND  WILL  BRING  IT  OUT,"  He  had  a  large 
power  of  patience,  which  this  war  required.  The 
people  of  the  North  demanded  a  change  of  generals 
after  each  misfortune,  but  he  saw  difficulties  they 


25 

could  not  see,  and  tried  one  after  the  other  long  and 
tolerantly  till  he  found  the  right  one.  That  is  the 
highest  proof  of  administrative  talent,  in  war,  which 
disregards  a  clamor,  rejects  instrumentalities  only 
after  they  have  been  exhausted,  and  feels  its  way 
along  the  rounds  of  failure  till  it  finds  the  choice 
that  can  sound  the  awful  charge  of  victory.  And 
though  his  arch-rival  at  Richmond  had  the  consum 
mate  education  and  prestige  of  a  soldier,  the  murmurs 
which  swelled  from  his  councils  and  his  fields  against 
him  had  double  the  volume  of  those  which  rose  to 
the  ears  of  your  President  from  the  fretful  loyalty  of 
the  North  ;  and  I  venture  the  prediction,  that  if  that 
history  can  ever  be  fully  written,  as  ours  will  be,  in 
military  comprehension  and  appreciation,  in  that  gift 
of  insight  which  is  the  product  of  nature  quite  as 
much  as  of  art  or  the  academy,  which  reduces  the 
involutions  of  armies  and  campaigns  to  simplicity  and 
analysis,  even  in  this,  all  this,  which  belongs  to  arms, 
our  plain  civilian  will  be  proved  to  have  outwitted 
the  other,  educated  soldier  though  he  was. 

Then  I  cannot  help  thinking  that,  as  a  part  of  the 
military  questions  he  had  to  treat,  there  were  such 
grave  matters  of  what  I  may  call  legislative  jurispru 
dence  as  had  not  been  thought  of  before.  To  weaken 
the  rebellion  by  the  destruction  of  its  civil  rights, 
and  this  alike  for  purposes  of  punishment  to  treason 
and  of  strength  to  loyalty, — this,  under  our  Constitu- 


26 

tion  which  never  contemplated  such  a  crisis  as  the 
present,  and  under  the  mutual  relations  of  national 
and  state  sovereignty,  the  delicacy  of  which  had  not 
been  apprehended  until  now,  required  a  statesmanship 
scarcely  less  than  judicial.  Would  Heaven  that  our 
own  Webster  could  have  lived  for  this,  to  have  sat  as 
premier  by  the  side  of  Lincoln,  to  have  illustrated 
with  unprecedented  effect  his  colossal  gifts  !  It  was 
a  great  thought — of  withdrawing  from  half  a  people 
the  rights  of  a  national  citizenship  and  of  indefeasible 
republican  immunities.  The  Congress  and  the 
President  did  not  altogether  agree.  This  is  not  the 
time  to  decide  between  them.  Congress  spoke  the 
policy  of  prompt  and  final  deliverance  from  the 
hateful  aristocracy  whose  alleged  rights,  if  not  utterly 
extinguished  in  war,  might  prove  a  clog  to  Freedom 
and  Nationality  in  peace.  The  President  endeavored 
to  blend  and  reconcile  the  supposed  elements  of  the 
discordant  rights  of  rebels  under  the  Constitution 
and  of  loyalty  in  war.  I  only  allude  to  the  subject 
to  call  your  attention  to  the  depth  of  the  matter 
which  underlay  the  military  policy  of  the  administra 
tion,  and  to  solicit  your  attention  to  the  message  of 
President  Lincoln,  July,  1862,  in  which,  while  he 
deferred  in  modesty  to  the  representatives  of  the 
people,  he  stood  upon  his  own  responsibility,  displayed 
in  bold  relief  the  abilities  of  a  technical  lawyer  and  a 
constitutional  jurist.  There  has  been  no  better 


27 

passage  in  his  life  by  which  he  could  have  illustrated 
his  capacity  for  the  comprehensive  field  of  an  inter 
state  and  national  war. 

And  then  I  reckon  it  another  striking  feature  of 
his  military  administration,  that  under  all  circum 
stances  he  took  accountability  and  censure  to  himself. 
We  may  acknowledge,  once  for  all,  that  there  was  a 
modest,  conscious  power  in  that ;  for  no  empirical 
experimentalist  would  have  trusted  himself  to  such  a 
test,  and  the  man  must  be  well  grounded  in  the 
popular  confidence  who  can  bear  it.  Point  me  to  any 
one  person  in  the  British  administration  who  was 
willing  to  stand  out  solitary  and  responsible  when  the 
people  criticised  the  campaigns  of  their  generals  in 
the  Peninsula  of  Spain  or  the  Crimea.  Rather  than 
that,  the  responsibility  could  only  be  found  distributed 
among  the  unknown  and  mystical  impersonalities  of 
the  Cabinet  and  the  Privy  Council.  Your  President 
on  the  other  hand  sought  no  shelter  from  criticism. 
In  the  first  year  of  the  war,  when  Congress  passed  a 
vote  of  censure  upon  one  of  his  Department  Secre 
taries,  he  sent  them  a  message  assuming  the 
responsibility  to  himself  ;  Jackson  would  have  done 
the  same,  but  no  other  man  since  his  day.  In  the 
second  year,  when  another  Secretary  of  War  was 
arraigned  by  large  numbers  of  the  people  for  having 
enforced  the  failure  of  McClellan  in  the  Peninsula 
by  withholding  reinforcements,  Mr.  Lincoln  came 


28 

gallantly  to  the  response  and  claimed  that  the  attack 
should  be  pointed  against  his  own  breast;  and  his 
dispatches  to  that  General,  since  published,  show  that 
he  could  well  afford  to  receive  the  attack.  He  wrote 
his  own  messages,  generally  directed  his  commanders, 
not  regularly  consulted  his  cabinet,  and,  I  believe, 
frequently  over-ruled  them  when  he  did.  He  felt 
that  he  was  personally  accountable  to  the  people  for 
the  triumphant  defence  of  the  Union.  He,  and  no 
other,  before  his  election,  and  in  his  inaugural,  had 
drawn  the  outlines  within  which  the  glory  of  his 
country  might  be  found,  and  now  like  a  wise  man  he 
relied  on  his  own  prayerful  study  and  on  his  own  keen 
instincts  for  ability  to  fill  out  the  outlines  with  the 
colors  that  shall  give  eternal  beauty  to  the  picture  of 
united  America.  In  this  I  admire  equally  his 
magnanimity  and  his  courage.  Fortunate  for  us,  that 
he  was  willing  to  take  such  responsibility.  Many 
and  many  a  time,  when  cypress  instead  of  laurel 
bound  the  eagles  of  the  army,  happy  and  hopeful 
were  we  all  if  only  we  might  believe  that  Mr.  Lincoln 
had  ordered  the  risk  and  the  shock  ;  we  cared  little 
for  his  ministers,  but  we  trusted  unsuspectingly  in 
him ;  when  our  reproaches  rose  almost  to  mutiny  in 
the  North,  if  only  he  would  say,  in  me,  in  me  vertite 
tela,  from  that  moment  as  by  a  charm  the  tumult 
subsided.  It  is  a  great  relief  in  the  discouragements 
and  troubles  of  war,  to  rest  upon  the  one  man  who  is 


29 

above  all  the  others  ;  it  is  a  greater  thing  if  that  man 
can  justify  and  warrant  such  a  rest  and  solace.  In 
this  power  of  impressment  is  a  good  part  of  a  ruler's 
greatness.  And  thus  we  trace  to  him  even  the 
brilliant  conduct  of  others  ;  for  since  he  willed  it, 
they  performed  it.  It  is  the  eulogy  of  Lincoln  to  say 
that  much  which  others  performed  he  suggested  and 
was  willing  to  be  held  responsible  for  it.  Said  the 
ablest  of  Englishmen  :  "  The  minister  who  does  those 
things  is  a  great  man — but  the  king  who  desires  that 
they  should  be  done,  is  a  far  greater." 

How  can  I  within  the  limits  of  these  remarks  speak 
fitly  or  sufficiently  of  the  part  he  bore  in  the  cause  of 
emancipation  1  Think  what  height  and  depth  stood 
in  the  way,  how  history  and  providence  only  shed 
darkness  over  his  approaches,  how  the  free  states 
were  rent  by  conflicting  opinions,  how  he  had  to 
institute  a  new  policy,  which,  if  it  might  succeed, 
would  invest  the  government  with  immortal  life,  but 
if  it  should  fail,  would  wreck  the  nation  and  shroud 
his  own  name  in  ignominy  forevermore.  It  wras  a 
necessity  which  he  had  not  anticipated.  It  took 
fifteen  months  of  war  to  discover  the  strength  of  the 
rebellion  and  the  weakness  of  the  government,  and 
when  the  alternative  came  at  length  it  presented 
sombre  and  frightful  proportions.  To  destroy  slavery 
he  had  not  been  elected,  nor  for  that  had  he  called 
the  people  to  arms  ;  the  only  duty  for  him,  and  that 


30 


which  he  judged  most  pleasing  to  God,  was  to  save 
this  Union  from  dissolution.  You  remember  how 
after  our  flag  had  begun  to  trail  in  defeat,  voices  here 
and  there  raised  this  issue  upon  him  in  terms  alike 
beseeching  and  threatening.  Still  what  could  he  do 
better  or  more  than  balance  the  conflict  of  magisterial 
ethics,  study  the  contradictory  omens  of  the  sky,  feel 
the  heart  of  his  country,  and  search  after  the  will  of 
the  last  arbiter  ]  Undoubtedly,  he  thought  the  neces 
sity  of  emancipation  might  come,  probably  it  would 
come ;  but  it  would  come  as  a  question  of  arms  and 
must  be  supported  by  public  opinion.  That  was  the 
day  of  all  which  tried  him  as  a  statesman. 

In  the  presence  of  such  a  question,  large  enough 
to  occupy  the  thoughts  and  agitations  of  a  generation, 
behold  the  unambitious  practical  statesmanship  of 
Abraham  Lincoln.  No  age  has  been  blessed  with  a 
better.  We  are  constantly  looking  back  through  the 
coloring  medium  of  distance  to  the  brilliant  lights  of 
the  past,  and  desponding  over  the  present  and  the 
future.  But  the  statesmen  of  one  age  are  unfitted 
for  the  requirements  of  another.  Peel  was  as  great 
for  his  time  as  Chatham  or  Bolingbroke  for  theirs. 
From  the  magnificent  success  of  our  late  President  we 
have  learned  the  right  definition  of  a  wise  ruler.  If 
it  be  his  labor  to  initiate  a  measure  that  shall  stand 
out  among  the  beneficent  acts  that  mark  historical 
periods,  it  is  his  still  more  painful  and  vexatious  work 


31 


to  commend  it  to  public  approval ;  he  has  to  enlighten 
the  ignorance  of  some,  and  to  convince  the  intelli 
gence  of  others ;  he  has  to  combat  honest  prejudices, 
and  modify  interested  opposition ;  if  he  would  move 
with  strength  and  certainty  towards  the  success  which 
is  ahead,  he  has  to  halt  in  his  steps,  and  clip  his 
propositions,  and  qualify  his  words,  and  emasculate  his 
theories  ;  if  he  would  be  strong  to  place  his  country 
among  the  positions  his  genius  has  pictured  for  her, 
he  must  apparently  enfeeble  his  policy  to  conciliate 
one  class  and  clog  it  with  burdens  to  satisfy  another. 
The  modern  statesman  must  combine  patient  temper, 
persevering  will,  and  sound  knowledge  of  men ;  he 
must  discern  the  present  tone  and  probable  direction 
of  public  opinion ;  he  must  distinguish  between 
intelligent  and  unintelligent  censure,  and  he  must 
know  how  much  of  public  outcry  can  safely  be  disre 
garded,  as  well  as  that  amount  which  he  cannot  afford 
to  withstand. 

Such  statesmanlike  qualities  Mr.  Lincoln  illustrated 
in  those  many  months  of  hesitation,  anxiety,  seeming 
then  almost  inability  to  act,  which  ushered  in  that 
day  on  which  he  emerged  from  his  closet,  bearing  in 
his  own  arms  the  effulgent  guidon  of  EMANCIPATION. 
I  religiously  believe  that  he  was  right,  all  along,  from 
the  stammering  beginning  to  the  clarion-like  finality. 
You  goaded  him  too  soon,  too  often,  and  too  long :  he 
was  the  while  in  consultation  with  the  counsellors 


32 

around  him,  with  his  little  learning  and  his  large  reflec 
tion,  with  all  of  history  he  had  read,  with  the  fathers 
and  the  prophets.  While  editors  and  orators  stirred 
strife  and  commotion  in  the  country  and  in  the  Senate 
Chamber  over  his  long  withholding  of  the  decree,  he 
continued  impassive  in  his  purpose,  and  remembered 
that  one  of  the  instructive  characters  in  his  favorite 
Bunyan  was  "  a  grave  and  beautiful  damsel  named 
Discretion."  And  so  I  conceive  that  he  was  right 
upon  this  question  in  that  which  some  of  us  thought 
his  dalliance  with  the  states  of  the  border,  right  also 
when  he  countermanded  Fremont's  military  order  of 
freedom — right  again  when  he  recalled  the  similar 
rescript  of  Hunter, — right  as  well  in  his  letter  to  Mr. 
Greeley, — and  right  at  last  when  the  angels  an 
nounced  the  hour  and  he  sent  forth  the  Decree  of 
Emancipation  triumphant  and  irrevocable  while  the 
earth  shall  stand.  Then  he  said :  "  I  have  done  this 
after  a  very  full  deliberation,  and  under  a  very  heavy 
and  solemn  sense  of  responsibility.  I  can  only  trust 
in  God  I  have  made  no  mistake.  It  is  now  for  the 
country  and  the  world  to  pass  judgment." 

Yes,  yes,  that  judgment  his  country  and  the  world 
have  already  passed.  His  returning  armies  share 
their  laurels  with  him  and  pay  their  resounding 
fusilade  over  the  turf  which  covers  their  father 
and  their  friend !  But  higher  honors  await  him ! 
A  nation  rescued  from  the  tyranny  whose  roots 


33 

have  spread  over  two  centuries,  never  relenting, 
never  appeased,  a  race  delivered  from  thraldom  and 
elevated  to  the  hopes  of  civilization  and  Christianity, 
shall  walk  to  the  beat  of  peaceful  marches  about 
his  tomb  till  the  resurrection !  And  wherever 
Freedom  shall  have  a  home,  or  America  a  name, 
or  Washington  a  praise,  over  the  whole  globe, 
mankind  shall  revere  the  memory  of  him  who 
sealed  the  baptism  of  emancipation  with  his  own 
blood  ! 

And  I  desire  for  myself  to  express  the  opinion 
that  no  monument  that  may  be  erected  to  com 
memorate  his  name  can  rise  so  high  or  endure  so 
long,  as  that  whose  foundations  shall  be  laid  in 
those  immutable  and  universal  rights  of  man  for 
which  he  gave  his  life.  As  the  emancipation  of 
four  millions  became  the  necessity  of  his  policy 
for  the  preservation  of  the  Union,  so  let  us  extend 
to  the  emancipated  race  all  the  rights  of  citizenship 
if  we  would  make  our  safety  certain  and  final. 
If  under  a  democratic  government  universal  suffrage 
is  worth  anything  in  the  North,  then  is  universal 
suffrage  a  paramount  necessity  in  the  South.  Is 
it  republican,  democratic  or  safe,  to  exclude  from 
the  polls  a  majority  of  the  loyal  population  of  the 
Southern  States  ]  Your  sons  have  been  maimed 
and  slain  in  vain,  if  the  aristocracy  which  was  the 
cause  and  support  of  the  war  shall  not  be  shorn 


34 

of  every  distinction,  if  the  oligarchy  shall  not 
have  its  roots  plucked  to  their  uttermost  fibre  out 
of  the  land. 

I  do  not  forget  to-day  that  probably  one-half  of  all 
those  who  now  help  to  extend  the  funeral  train,  have 
at  one  time  or  another  in  four  years  pronounced  their 
complaint  that  Mr.  Lincoln  was  too  much  the  follower, 
not  sufficiently  the  leader  of  public  opinion.  The  stern 
tribunal  of  history  adjusts  all  such  accounts  as  that. 
The  immortal  Washington  opened  his  mission  at 
Cambridge  under  the  same  necessities  of  limitation 
that  have  bounded  the  horizon  of  Lincoln.  He  entered 
the  war  in  advance  of  the  issue,  and  had  to  await  the 
developments  of  events  which  made  separation  and 
independence  the  sublime  ultimatum.  I  concede 
that  the  late  President  waited  on  public  opinion  ;  and 
when  you  reflect  how  abnormal  and  stupendous  was 
the  cause  he  had  to  manage,  I  will  thank  you  to 
tell  me  if  waiting  on  public  opinion  was  not  waiting 
on  Providence  itself.  Tell  me,  if  the  success  or  loss 
of  the  whole,  to  us  and  to  distant  generations,  did  not 
depend  on  the  spirit  of  the  people.  Public  sentiment 
is  the  arbiter  of  republican  destinies.  But  public 
sentiment, — what  is  it  here  with  us  but  the  product, 
not  precisely  the  average  quantity,  but  the  result  and 
the  product  of  the  intuitions,  instincts,  sagacities,  and 
reflections  of  the  millions  of  America, — the  crystali- 
zation  of  the  myriad  forces  of  democracy, — to  be 


35 

ascertained  by  the  President  only  after  incessant  labor, 
and  study,  and  retrospection,  —  then,  when  with 
satisfactory  certainty  ascertained,  to  be  not  only  con 
sulted,  but  to  be  received  and  accepted  as  in  the  nature 
of  inspiration  and  decree  to  the  magistrate.  He  who 
keeps  pace  with  this  requistion  is  neither  quite  a  leader 
nor  quite  a  follower,  but  a  representative,  adminis 
trator,  and  executor, — all  and  everything  which  a 
democratic  constitution  will  ask  for  or  can  permit. 
Mr.  Lincoln  understood  and  adopted  this  construction 
of  statesmanship  better  than  I  can  analyze  it.  He 
sought  neither  to  lead  public  opinion,  nor  consented 
to  follow  it.  No  man  could  with  greater  force  or 
justice  than  he  could,  repeat  the  remark  which 
Edmund  Burke  made  in  his  own  justification  to  his 
constituents, — that  he  did  not  follow  public  opinion, 
but  only  went  out  to  meet  it  on  the  way.  This  alone 
gave  your  President  his  power.  I  do  not  forget  that 
there  are  occasions  in  which  the  statesman,  like  the 
leader  in  the  field,  may  organize  and  direct  the  strat 
egic  movements  of  public  action.  But  in  the  march  of 
civilization,  issues  ripen,  events  come,  and  men  advance 
to  the  conflict.  A  man,  an  accident,  a  trifle,  hastens 
or  retards  the  battle,  but  the  single  man  does  not 
make  the  revolution  nor  quell  the  storm.  In  the 
significant  epochs  of  history  or  final  clash  of  arms, 
the  statesman  can  discern  the  occasions,  the  opportu 
nities,  and  the  necessities  of  the  hour,  but  his  greatness 


36 


and  glory  are  largely  the  product  of  the  times.  An 
English  journalist  has  just  said  of  the  lamented  Mr. 
Cobden,  that  "  his  limitations  as  a  statesman  con 
stituted  his  greatness  as  a  representative  thinker."  I 
like  the  expression  and  the  philosophy  of  it.  I  could 
coin  no  better  phrase  with  which  to  define  the  wise 
statesmanship  of  Mr.  Cobden's  friend  on  this  side  of 
the  water.  SEEKING  NOT  TO  TRANSCEND  HIS  LIMITATIONS 

AS  A  STATESMAN,  HE  MADE  HIMSELF  THE  REPRESENTA 
TIVE  THINKER  OF  HIS  COUNTRY  AND  HIS  TIME.  That 

is  his  glory  to-day,  and  can  never  become  his  weakness 
or  his  shame.  Of  course  such  an  understanding  of 
the  policy  and  the  duty  of  a  national  magistrate 
subjects  him,  as  Mr.  Lincoln  for  a  time  was  subjected, 
to  the  imputation  of  over-cautious  timidity ;  but  a 
just  posterity,  nay,  the  sagacious  present  generation, 
will  expunge  the  criticism  and  open  to  him  the 
pathway  to  justice.  So,  if  I  remember  correctly,  the 
policy  of  Fabius  was  by  some  called  cowardice,  or  at 
least  timidity,  in  his  day  ;  but  I  believe  it  prepared 
the  way  for  the  avenging  armies  of  Scipio.  So,  as  I 
have  read,  the  venerable  Washington  was  characterized 
and  criticised  in  his  time  also ;  but  I  have  the 
impression  that  Yorktown,  and  the  Constitution,  and 
eight  years  of  magisterial  glory,  constituted  his  vindi 
cation.  So,  as  I  have  observed,  Lincoln  was  summoned 
to  submit  to  the  same  test  of  fame  ;  and  so  we  all  see 
this  day  that  his  name  ascends  henceforth  among  the 
stars. 


37 

His  speech,  though  not  uniform,  was  not  unworthy 
of  his  action.  Consider  how  opposite  are  the 
requisitions  in  this  respect  which  empires  make  upon 
their  rulers,  and  take  the  two  leading  powers  of  the 
East  and  the  West  for  the  illustration.  The  Czar  of 
Russia, — blessed  be  his  fortunes  evermore  for  that 
early  and  timely  friendship  which  he  bestowed  upon 
our  country  and  our  President,  when  the  cabinets  on 
either  shore  of  the  fitful  and  vengeful  Channel  offered 
us  only  the  scowling  welcome  of  intimidation  and 
hypocrisy, — to  whom,  some  day,  in  the  alternations  of 
our  inter-nationalities,  the  shade  of  assassinated  inno 
cence  shall  stalk  in  terror  and  retribution  over  all  the 
seas  they  arrogate  ;  that  Czar  of  Russia,  all  the  way 
from  Peter  or  Catharine  to  the  latest  Alexander, 
wields  dominion  with  action  and  without  words.  That 
is  the  condition  of  his  rule,  nor  is  it  our  business  or 
our  pleasure  to  find  fault  with  it  there.  The  genius 
of  America  is  another.  Here  the  President  is  the 
selected  agent  of  the  people,  and  must  respond  when 
ever  they  call  for  his  reasons.  No  President  before 
Lincoln  ever  had  so  many  and  such  calls.  They  came 
from  Congress,  from  every  State,  from  associations, 
from  delegations,  from  individual  men,  from  sponta 
neous  assemblages  under  a  hundred  moon-lights  on 
the  lawn  around  the  Executive  mansion.  He  had  a 
word  for  them  all.  True  it  is,  he  had  still  that  greatest 
gift  of  a  magistrate,  the  power  of  reticence,  the 


38 

masterly  talent  of  suppression,  whenever  the  occasion 
required  it.  He  let  them  off  with  his  joke  and  his 
western  wit,  whenever  that  was  all  they  ought  to  have. 
In  this  sometimes,  and  too  frequently,  he  reduced  the 
dignity  of  his  office  ;  but  it  was  the  relief-valve  which 
he  had  received  from  his  Maker.  Yet,  beside  all  this, 
so  many  were  his  necessities  of  public  speaking,  that 
no  one  of  his  predecessors  had  been  tried  in  that  way 
so  often.  He  spoke  good  things  from  the  windows  of 
the  White  House,  as  he  had  spoken  them  before  on 
the  prairies.  They  shall  be  handed  over  to  you  and 
your  children,  and  you  shall  say  that  I  do  not  praise 
them  too  highly.  You  shall  find  some  shade  and 
beauty  beneath  their  pine  and  oaken  leaves.  You 
shall  say  that  he  spoke  and  wrote  with  much  of  the 
simplicity,  quaintness  and  power  of  Franklin,  and  the 
elemental  mastery  of  our  tongue.  Many  were  his 
occasional  speeches,  and  one  of  them  at  least  will 
be  imperishable  for  its  felicity  and  brevity.  Lord 
Macaulay  assures  us  that  barrister  Somers  in  a  speech 
of  five  minutes  in  the  Court  of  King's  Bench  estab 
lished  the  enduring  fame  of  an  orator.  Mr.  Lincoln 
by  a  speech  of  only  that  duration  at  Gettysburg 
divided  the  honors  of  the  day  with  the  transcendent 
Everett,  and  inscribed  his  name  on  the  tombstone  of 
every  soldier  whose  ashes  there  await  the  rising  of 
the  quick  and  the  dead.  His  state  papers  are  more 
lasting  than  these.  His  messages  to  Congress  have 


39 

already  passed  into  the  national  literature  ;  they  were 
read  at  the  time  in  the  courts  of  France  and  England ; 
and  though  they  may  have  been  obliterated  or 
obscured  there  by  royal  art,  they  will  reappear  for 
luminous  and  prophetic  reading  when  Europe  and 
America  shall  settle  their  accounts. 

In  these  state  papers  posterity  will  recognize  a 
style  of  power  that  is  not  more  unique  in  its  form 
than  in  its  produced  effect.  It  is  in  sympathy  with 
the  national  characteristics  and  with  the  traditional 
choice  of  the  people.  His  mind  was  acute,  logical, 
and  subtle  ;  and  that  they  appreciate.  In  the  time  of 
her  casuistry  and  refinement  the  public  teachers  of 
Greece  found  no  heartier  reception  than  wit  and 
reason  find  now  in  America  from  Maine  to  Xevada. 
Mr.  Lincoln  had  studied  the  first  and  second  sight  of 
his  countrymen,  till  he  could  address  them  with  a 
direction  that  seldom  failed.  Then  he  secured  their 
favor,  and  I  may  say  pleased  their  senses,  by  a 
genialty  and  humor  which  smoothed  their  asperities, 
conquered  their  prejudices,  and  attracted  their  hearts 
to  him  and  his  cause.  Even  in  the  winter  of  their 
discontent,  when  arms  were  unsuccessful  and  taxes 
were  high,  he  led  them  as  through  the  gorgeousness 
and  serenity  of  an  Indian  summer,  to  new  campaigns, 
and  heavier  burdens,  and  coming  victories.  From  '62 
to  '64  such  was  the  power  of  his  written  and  spoken 
words.  In  statement  and  argument  he  struck  deeper 


40 


and  richer  veins  than  his  supposed  education  would 
have  suggested.  I  think  we  are  quite  apt  to  be  in 
error  as  to  this  whole  matter  of  education.  When 
and  where  did  Hamilton  acquire  his] — for  he  left 
college  a  boy,  before  his  time,  and  saw  no  schools 
afterwards  save  the  camp,  the  cabinet,  and  the  bar ; 
yet  he  proved  the  finest  intellect  of  his  time.  Inform 
me,  if  you  can,  whence  came  the  education  of  Lincoln, 
who  never  trod  the  floors  of  a  college.  I  only  know 
that  we  do  not  know  what  may  have  been  his  study 
in  a  lazy,  unlimited,  unconditioned  western  life.  I 
do  know,  what  he  stated  when  last  he  was  in  New 
England  five  years  ago,  on  the  eve  and  in  the  expec 
tation  of  his  honors,  that,  after  he  had  tried  the  study 
of  the  law  and  had  found  himself  cornered,  he  went 
into  retirement  for  some  months  and  studied  Euclid 
till  he  understood  it  from  root  to  outermost  branch. 
And  so  doubtless  he  went  through  more  than  we 
know  of  the  struggle  and  ecstacy  of  educating  himself. 
However  that  may  have  been,  and  whenever  or 
wherever  he  may  have  acquired  the  power,  you  and  I 
know  that  he  could  reason  with  a  straightforwardness 
and  incisiveness  which  Harvard  or  Princeton  might 
be  proud  to  honor.  This  is  not  the  extravaganza  of 
eulogy  ;  peruse,  as  I  have  perused,  his  written  and 
spoken  addresses,  from  Illinois  in  '58  to  his  last  and 
singular  Inaugural,  and  you  shall  say  the  same.  I 
will  not  particularize  out  of  them  all,  save  one.  Take 


41 

up  and  read  critically  his  published  letter  to  Erastus 
Corning  and  hist  committee,  covering  the  whole 
question  of  the  suspension  of  the  habeas  corpus  and 
the  subjection  of  the  civil  to  military  law,  and  it  shall 
be  your  impartial  judgment  that  in  a  broad  statement 
of  public  safety  and  historical  law  it  is  not  unworthy 
of  Hamilton  ;  in  purity  and  legitimacy  of  style  it  is 
scarcely  inferior  to  the  papers  of  the  same  master  ; 
and  in  just  comprehensiveness  and  ingenuous  patri 
otism  it  would  reflect  credit  upon  the  tender  heart 
and  robust  nationalism  of  Washington.  I  admired  it 
when  it  first  appeared,  and  now  after  a  second  and 
third  reading  I  think  it  to  be  the  best  of  all  his 
papers. 

The  moral  and  humane  qualities  of  the  good  Presi 
dent  set  off  and  gilded  his  term.  Did  you  ever  know 
a  potentate  whose  rule  bore  such  blazonry  of  events, 
civic  and  martial,  and  whose  daily  life  was  so  simple, 
plain  and  temperate  ]  I  believe  that  not  Sir  Matthew 
Hale  kept  sterner  vigil  over  private  and  official  hours, 
over  the  shrine  of  the  domestic  sanctuary.  Success 
was  his  aim  and  duty  his  guide,  and  he  saw  little  time 
for  display,  or  amusement,  or  ostentation.  In  four 
years  of  labor,  which  would  have  broken  like  a  reed 
'any  man  of  less  iron  cast,  he  not  once  got  time  to 
revisit  the  state  and  city  of  his  love,  seldom  left  the 
capital  unless  to  visit  the  tents,  hospitals  or  graves 
of  his  soldiers,  and  once  only  came  so  far  as  the 


42 

Xorth  to  consult  on  the  national  safety  with  a  retired 
chieftain,  lie  gave  attentive  ear  to  humblest  men 
and  women,  was  as  faithful  in  small  acts  of  kindness 
as  in  great  acts  of  justice,  as  amiable  in  little  things 
in  private  as  in  high  matters  of  state. 

His  magnanimity  became  proverbial.  His  soul  was 
no  nursery  for  a  brood  of  resentments.  He  conferred 
the  bars,  and  stars,  and  eagles  of  war  generously 
upon  those  who  had  not  given  him  a  vote  or  a 
sympathy,  if  only  they  were  true  to  the  nag.  He 
bared  his  own  breast  to  the  brunt  of  many  an  assault 
aimed  at  Cameron,  or  Stanton,  or  McClellan,  allowed 
them  the  honors,  and  took  to  himself  the  swarming 
reproaches.  In  a  serenade  on  the  evening  after  his 
second  election,  when  the  impassioned  majority  would 
have  dishonored  the  name  of  his  rival,  he  spoke  for 
him  grand  words  of  charity  and  justice.  A  specific 
instance  of  his  truthful  magnanimity  I  must  unfold  to 
you,  as  it  has  been  related  to  me  upon  the  best  of 
authority.  On  a  certain  morning  many  months  before 
Chief  Justice  Taney  died,  his  immediate  decease  was 
pronounced  in  Washington  as  certain.  In  antici 
pation  of  the  supposed  impending  death  our  senior 
senator  called  upon  Mr.  Lincoln  and  discussed  with 
him  the  importance  of  appointing  Mr.  Chase  to  fill 
the  expected  vacancy.  The  President  at  length  gave 
the  assurance,  But  the  Chief  Justice  renewed  his 
lease  of  life,  and  many  months  lapsed  away.  Mean- 


43 


while,  between  Mr.  Lincoln  and  Mr.  Chase,  in  the 
council  of  administration,  divergences  arose.  At 
length  in  July,  '64,  the  latter  laid  the  key  of  the 
exchequer  upon  the  President's  table.  He  accepted 
the  resignation  without  hesitation.  Then  came 
Senators  to  his  room  to  urge  the  re-appointment  or 
restoration  of  Mr.  Chase  to  the  Treasury, — for  that 
juncture  reflected  dark  shadows  over  our  finances. 
"  Xo,  no,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  "  for  between  him  and 
me  there  is  an  incompatibility  for  the  same  council. 
But  this,  you  will  bear  in  mind,  would  not  prevent 
me  from  honoring  Mr.  Chase  in  any  other  high  sphere 
of  the  government."  Half  a  year  afterwards  the 
Chief  Justice  died,  but  not  before  Mr.  Chase  had 
sprinkled  along  his  travels  in  New  England  sharp 
and  disparaging  words  of  criticism  upon  the  President. 
And  yet  the  same  President,  faithful  to  his  promise 
and  his  duty,  forgetful  of  wrong  and  injustice  to 
himself,  conferred  upon  his  late  secretary  the  appoint 
ment,  and  placed  the  jurisprudence  of  the  United 
States  and  the  rights  of  human  nature  under  perpetual 
obligations  to  his  magnanimity. 

He  believed  in  God.  You  know  how  he  left  his 
home  for  Washington  in  February,  '61,  in  his  parting 
words  requesting  that  his  neighbors  would  array  in 
his  support  the  mysterious  power  of  the  legions  of 
prayer  ;  and  after  he  had  assumed  his  high  trust  at 
the  Capital  he  cultivated  that  religious  life  which  is 


44 


the  best  guaranty  of  a  nation's  triumph.  While  war, 
according  to  its  prescriptive  laws,  opened  all  the 
avenues  of  inconsideration  and  levity  to  others,  he 
drew  his  consolations  and  refreshed  his  courage  at 
the  never-failing  fountains  of  divine  mercy.  It  was 
this,  added  to  his  humorous  and  sunny  views,  which 
bore  him  upward  and  onward  through  such  a  regime 
of  four  years  as  never  had  been  allotted  to  a  head 
that  wore  a  crown.  And  therefore  all  the  people 
believed  in  him.  More  distinctly  than  any  other 
President  since  Washington  he  irradiated  the  official 
pathway  at  all  times  and  in  all  places  with  the 
conspicuous  publicity  of  Christian  ethics.  When 
Canning  in  Parliament  opposed  the  humanity  of 
slavery-abolition,  he  declared  in  classic  words  that 
it  was  impracticable  to  apply  to  politics  those  pure 
abstract  principles  which  are  indispensable  to  the 
excellence  of  private  ethics.  That  was  English,  and 
almost  worthy  of  a  court  whose  official  philanthropy 
is  now  proved  to  have  been  another  name  for  the 
ambition  of  commercial  and  political  ascendency. 
Accordingly  Great  Britain  could  not  conceal  surprise 
at  the  novelty  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  theory  of  Christian 
ethics  as  a  rule  for  official  conduct ;  and  the  difference 
between  us  will  have  to  be  postponed  to  the  adjust 
ments  which  are  yet  to  come  of  American  and 
European  ideas. 

Your  President  was   kind  and  tender  to   a  fault. 


45 

This  led  him  into  some  mistakes,  but  his  magnanimity 
corrected  them.  So  he  yielded  somewhat  to  the  rebel 
Campbell  at  Richmond,  and  gave  what  might  have 
proved  a  fatal  order  to  Weitzel,  but  revoked  it  on  the 
last  day  of  his  life  when  he  discovered  his  error.  I 
suspect,  that  if  he  had  lived  for  the  reconstruction, 
he  would  have  made  several  such  mistakes  ;  but  I 
know  that  he  would  have  rectified  and  retrieved  them. 
I  do  not  think  he  would  have  executed  the  traitor 
who  set  up  as  his  rival  for  history,  but  I  trust  that 
his  successor  will.  Yet,  after  all,  as  the  morning  of 
victory  opened  on  his  sight,  and  as  the  hour  of  his 
own  translation  drew  nigh,  I  love  to  recur  to  the 
benignity  of  his  purposes  towards  the  most  wicked 
of  men.  In  his  last  consultation  with  his  cabinet,  a 
few  hours  before  his  departure,  his  heart  melted 
before  the  appalling  claims  of  JUSTICE.  I  think, 
however,  he  only  meant  to  say  : — 

"  I  shall  temper  so 
Justice  with  Mercy,  as  may  illustrate 
Them  fully  satisfied,  and  then  appease." 

Nay,  more,  I  catch  the  language  of  his  last  Inaugural 
for  his  eulogy . — "  WITH  MALICE  TOWARD  NONE,  WITH 
CHARITY  FOR  ALL."  Lofty  words  !  He  knew  not  what 
those  men  had  in  preparation  for  him,  and  the  Lord 
in  his  infinite  mercy  was  preparing  him  to  go  at  their 
bidding,  whispering  as  he  ascended,  "Father,  forgive 
them,  for  they  know  not  what  they  do  ! " 


46 


As  you  look  backward  along  the  galleries  of 
history,  you  are  surprised  when  you  think  how  few 
are  found  whose  fame  has  outlived  their  period  or 
country,  how  few  have  passed  into  the  constellations 
of  immortal  light.  Those  only  are  privileged  with 
that  imperishable  distinction  whose  record  gleams 
forth  above  the  wreck  of  contemporary  annals,  whose 
labors  place  an  entire  nation,  or  many  generations, 
or  all  mankind,  under  the  remembrance  of  debt 
and  obligation.  To  that  judgment,  ubiquitous  and 
everlasting,  Washington  passed  sixty-five  years  ago. 
From  that  day  to  ours,  out  of  the  long  list  of 
American  Presidents,  however  marked  their  own 
talent  or  their  own  period,  no  one  of  them  all  before 
has,  in  the  full  sense  of  universal  humanity  and  fame, 
given  special  dignity,  or  unlimited  praise,  or  immortal 
renown,  to  America  through  time  and  space.  But 
such  has  been  the  mission  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 
However  we  should  have  estimated  him  four  years 
ago  as  to  the  limitation  of  his  previous  life,  or  his 
natural  parts,  or  his  acquired  culture,  now  that  the 
four  years  have  passed  it  has  become  apparent  that 
Almighty  God  had  selected  him  for  world-wide  honor 
and  benignity. 

I  appropriate  to  him  the  language  of  our  own 
fellow-citizen  and  historian,  Mr.  Motley,  which  he 
applied  to  William  of  Orange  : 

'Xo  man  was  ever  more  devoted  to  a  high  purpose: 


47 

no  man  had  ever  more  right  to  imagine  himself,  or 
less  inclination  to  pronounce  himself,  entrusted  with 
a  divine  mission.  There  was  nothing  of  the  charlatan 
in  his  character.  His  nature  was  true  and  steadfast. 
No  narrow-minded  usurper  was  ever  more  loyal  to 
his  own  aggrandizement,  than  this  large-hearted  man 
to  the  cause  of  oppressed  humanity.  Yet  it  was 
inevitable  that  baser  minds  should  fail  to  recognize 
his  purity.  It  was  natural  for  grovelling  natures 
to  search  in  the  gross'  soil  of  self-interest  for  the 
sustaining  roots  of  the  tree  beneath  whose  branches 
a  nation  found  its  shelter.  What  could  they  compre 
hend  of  living  fountains  or  of  heavenly  dews  I  " 

But  his  untimely  hour  had  come.  You  remember 
the  fatal  evening  only  too  well  already,  and  I  do  not 
desire  to  disturb  your  sensibilities  by  anything  more 
than  this  allusion  to  it.  In  our  poetry,  and  art,  and 
annals,  that  fourteenth  of  April  shall  henceforth  be 
known  and  remembered  as  the  noche  triste — the 
sorrowful  night.  The  just  and  good  magistrate  then 
went  away  out  of  our  sight. 

The  flag  on  spire,  pinnacle,  and  cottage,  had 
scarcely  been  restored  from  its  depression  of  mourn 
ing,  nor  the  muffled  drum  had  ceased  to  beat,  when 
the  rival  of  the  dead,  the  representative  cause  of  our 
sorrows,  was  overtaken  by  retribution.  lie  enjoys 
this  evening  his  reflections  upon  history,  and  provi 
dence,  and  judgment,  in  the  hospitality  of  the  noblest 


48 


Fortress  of  the  Union,  on  a  bed  around  which  the 
shade  of  the  murdered  President  would  fain  marshal 
"angels  and  ministers  of  grace"  to  protect  him.  Who 
in  all  the  earth  cares  now  what  shall  become  of  him  I 
But  whenever,  or  wherever,  or  however  his  time  shall 
terminate,  between  him  and  the  vile  dust  to  which  he 
shall  descend  there  is  only  the  brief  hour  of  the  life 
of  a  criminal,  to  be  succeeded  by  the  reproaches  of 
his  contemporary  countrymen,  North  and  South,  the 
heavy-pressing  judgments  of  all  posterity  and  of  the 
eternal  God.  Xo  matter  when,  or  where,  or  how 
Jefferson  Davis  shall  die, — his  death  cannot  be  less 
ignominious  than  that  of  the  assassin  who  performed 
his  purpose, — and  all  generations  shall  welcome  him 
to  the  immortality  of  the  representative  Traitor  of  the 
race ! 

But  another  guerdon  awaits  our  president.  lie 
sought  to  save,  not  to  destroy.  He  labored  to  uphold 
the  pillars  of  the  Temple  whose  grace  and  beauty,  if 
magistrates  prove  faithful,  can  never  decay.  He 
studied  policy  and  wisdom  day  and  night  in  a  civil 
war  which  cost  him  his  life,  that  his  country  might 
live,  and  fought  treason  on  every  line  and  in  every 
trench  over  half  the  states,  that  democratic  govern 
ment  in  America  might  shine  forth  to  cheer  and 
animate  and  guide  mankind  to  the  remotest  bounds 
of  the  world  and  of  time.  He  ransomed  four  millions 
of  his  own  countrymen  from  the  thraldom  of  two 


49 

hundred  years,  and  died  under  the  blow  of  slavery 
in  the  ecstacy  of  the  sight.  No  matter  when,  or 
where,  or  how  death  should  come  to  him, — for 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  has  completed  the  work  which 
GEORGE  WASHINGTON  began, — to  HIS  victories,  great 
and  unapproachable,  he  has  added  such  triumphs  as 
war  never  contemplated  before, — to  the  broad  field 
of  HIS  civic  glory  he  has  imparted  a  still  broader 
radiance  ; — and  he  now  goes  from  our  presence  into 
the  presence  of  other  ages,  garlanded  with  the  double 
honor  of  RESTORER  and  LIBERATOR  ! 


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